Tropical Summer
by Knightingael
Summary: Given the choice between spending the summer with the Dursleys or on a tropical island with his newfound godfather, Harry makes the obvious choice.
1. Chapter 1

In which Sirius is somewhat more concerned about his godson than he is about Ron. Sorry Ron.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognisable.

* * *

It took the hippogriff a moment to readjust its balance with the addition of a third human, jostling all its passengers alarmingly and causing Hermione to cling painfully to Harry.  
"Ok Buckbeak," Harry said, "go up," and gave the makeshift reins a shake.  
"I'm going to head south," Sirius half shouted over the noise of Buckbeak's powerful wings, "let myself get spotted."  
"What if you get caught?" Harry had to shout as well to be heard over the clatter of Buckbeak's landing on the roof of the West Tower.  
Sirius gave a bark of laughter, "they didn't manage to catch me with a hundred Dementors and one location - although I'll have to be more careful, no time-travelling heroes," he said as Harry and Hermione carefully slid off Buckbeak without kicking either each other or Sirius.  
"You'd better go," Hermione said, grabbing Harry's wrist to check his watch, "they'll reach Flitwick's office any minute," she paused for a moment and then exclaimed, "oh bother."  
"What," Harry and Sirius said together  
"How are we going to get past them and back to the Hospital Wing? We don't have the cloak!" Harry groaned, she was right.  
"The south tower's just as close to the Hospital Wing," Sirius said, grinning, "it's on my way anyway, want a lift?"

Harry and Hermione climbed back on Buckbeak and Sirius took the reins, sending the hippogriff and his three passengers off the edge of the tower and south.  
"Where will you go?" Harry asked, quieter now Buckbeak was mostly gliding and he wasn't talking over the top of Hermione.  
"London, I suppose," Sirius said, keeping one eye on the Hogwarts roof so they didn't miss the tower, "then I don't know."  
"Where would we have gone? If Pettigrew..." said Harry  
"Hadn't been a rat?" Sirius finished, "Don't know, I haven't seen any of my family in the best part of twenty years so it would depend on how many of them are dead." He sounded surprisingly cheerful about that and Hermione made a disapproving noise into the space between Harry's shoulder blades where she'd buried her head. The tight grip around his waist was back. "Ah, South Tower." Sirius said, pulling the reins and sending Buckbeak down and to the left to land noisily on the roof.

Hermione nearly fell over in her haste to get down from the hippogriff's back.  
"I'll write to you when I can," Sirius said as Harry slid down after her, "we'll see each other again Harry."  
With that Buckbeak took off into the night, Harry couldn't help but watch the speck that was his godfather even as Hermione pulled him towards the stairs heading downwards.

Panting they arrived at the Hospital Wing just in time to hear Dumbledore say good luck to their previous selves and leave the room. He looked around and spotted them before he shut the door and smiled.  
"Well done, I presume," he said and Harry and Hermione nodded. The headmaster paused for a moment, listening intently to what was going on inside the room, "yes, I think you've gone as well. I'll lock you inside."  
They snuck into the room and headed back to their respective beds, the lock clicking behind them. Hermione had just slipped the Time Turner back into her robe pocket when Madam Pomfrey bustled out of her office and thrust some chocolate at them, evidently disgruntled by the Headmaster's interference. Madam Pomfrey kept handing the both of them chocolate until the sound of angry but indistinct voices could be heard heading towards the door.

It was much easier to deal with Snape shouting about Sirius now that he knew his godfather was safe and free. He had to keep eating the chocolate in order to hide his grin, which he was sure would actually cause Snape to explode. In fact, looking at the Potions professor raging he couldn't help but be reminded of Dudley having a tantrum about not getting what he wanted.

That image had him choking on his chocolate as Madam Pomfrey gave him a thump on the back to clear it and a glass of water to drink as Snape finally gave up and stormed out of the room.

"That was quite unpleasant," Fudge said, wringing his hands, "he seems unbalanced so I suppose...I suppose it's rather a good thing. Wouldn't do for him to have an outburst like that at the presentation ceremony."  
"I quite agree Cornelius," Dumbledore said, "now, about the dementors."  
"With Black's escape and this...incident," he gestured to Harry, "they'll be gone by tonight. Dementors attempting the Kiss on an innocent will be the least of our worries after the news breaks that we had Black cornered and he escaped. We'll be a laughing stock if the Prophet finds out about the blasted hippogriff escaping too..."  
"Perhaps we should have this conversation in my office Cornelius," Dumbledore said,  
"I quite agree," Madam Pomfrey said archly as Ron groaned and shifted.

Dumbledore lead a distracted Fudge out of the Hospital Wing and Madam Pomfrey shut the door firmly and locked it.  
"Hopefully that's the last interruption tonight," she said, pursing her lips and striding back into her office.  
"Wazzappenin," came from Ron's bed, followed by a groan as he heaved himself upright, "what happened? Where's Sirius? Lupin? Pettigrew? What happened."  
"Can you explain?" Hermione said to Harry, "I want to sleep."  
"Sure."

His version probably wasn't the most coherent, jumping around on events but then neither of them was particularly coherent either - Ron from whatever magic Pettigrew had managed to hit him with and Harry from a combination of exhaustion, joy and quite a lot of chocolate. He was fairly sure that he'd ended up falling asleep mid-sentence because the next thing he knew it was morning and Hermione was shaking him awake.

After a quick examination Madam Pomfrey ruled Harry and Hermione could leave but Ron would have to remain  
"But..." Ron argued  
"No, Mr. Weasley," the mediwitch said sternly, "you broke your leg last night and kept walking on it even with strapping. No matter how much of a brave face you put on it, your leg needs more rest. You may be able to leave by lunchtime if you sit back down right now and take this potion."  
"Sorry," Harry said,  
"S'alright mate," Ron said, sitting back down in defeat.  
"We could stay?" Hermione suggested.  
"No thank you Miss Granger," said Madam Pomfrey, "now, you two - out."

Defeated, the two headed out of the Hospital Wing and down to the Great Hall just in time to see the mass exodus of most of the students over third year.  
"I forgot, it's a Hogsmeade weekend," Hermione said, sitting down the remnants of breakfast at the Gryffindor table.  
"Are you going to go?" said Harry, managing to find some toast and bacon, grateful for whatever magic meant the food wasn't cold.  
"No. I'm too tired, you can't go and Ron probably won't be able to walk that far if he gets released today."  
They were interrupted by an owl swooping down towards them. It wasn't Hedwig but a rather generic looking brown owl who dropped a heavy letter in front of Harry and then soared away. Breakfast forgotten he tore it open, finding both a letter and a small mirror. Setting the mirror aside he turned to the letter  
"Who's it from? What does it say?" Hermione asked and he tilted it towards her and let her read.

_Dear Harry _  
_Managed to get to London before the sun got up but that's all I'm saying about where I am right now. Turns out my dear old mum popped her clogs in '84 but my grandpa Arcturus reinherited me before he died in 1991. Letters can be intercepted so here's a much easier way to contact me. Your dad and I used to use them if we were in separate detentions. Just say my name into it and we'll be able to talk._  
_Sirius_

"Do you think it works?" Hermione said, picking up the mirror and turning it over in her hands.  
"I hope so," said Harry, looking hopefully at it "let's try it out."  
"Not here," she said, "it's still a little crowded."

The two of them headed outside into the warm sun. Sitting down by the lake Harry held up the mirror in front of him and said "Sirius"  
A moment passed and then the grinning face of his godfather appeared, "You got my letter, good."  
"Did my Dad really use this mirror?" Harry said,  
"Yes, it still activates to James," Sirius said, joy dimming, "I didn't have time to change the enchantments before I sent it to you."  
"Where did you get it?" Hermione said.  
"Made 'em years ago," Sirius said, "Aurors tossed my flat at some point, probably after I was arrested, made finding things a nightmare. I suppose I'm lucky they didn't send everything to my dear old mum, she'd have set everything on fire."  
"You said she was dead," said Hermione.  
"And you're wondering how I can be so cheerful?" Sirius said, raising an eyebrow. At Hermione's slightly embarrassed look he continued, "my mum was a pureblood bigot a step away from joining the Death Eaters, after I got sorted into Gryffindor I barely ever stayed there and I still got disinherited before fifth year. Your grandparents took me in, Harry, they were better parents than mine ever were."  
"Really," Harry perked up, "nobody's ever said anything about them before."  
"I've got a few stories about them I could tell you. Mostly I sent this to you so I could talk about the summer holidays - apparently one of the things the Black family owns that I never knew about is an island in the Bermuda Triangle."  
"Really!" Harry and Hermione said together.  
"Yeah, there's more than a few magically owned islands there. I'm going to let myself get seen once or twice more and then I'm heading out there, do you want to join me Harry."  
"Yes," Harry said immediately.  
"What about your Aunt and Uncle?" Hermione said, "won't they mind. Besides, what if you get caught?  
"They won't care, and I don't care," Harry said emphatically, "I blew up Aunt Marge last summer and ran away, Ron and the twins had to pull bars off my window to get me out the summer before that, I don't think I'll have been forgiven for either of those yet and that's if they don't start locking me in my room again." Hermione and Sirius were both looking aghast at that.  
"I...I didn't know it was that bad," Hermione said. Harry shrugged. Being able to roam around Diagon Alley had definitely been the best summer of his life so far.  
"You're coming with me for the summer," Sirius said, firmer than Harry had ever heard him, "and every other holiday. You can't legally live with me but I don't care, it's my fault you went to those people in the first place. Besides, if we get caught then as far as whoever catches us is concerned, evil convict Sirius Black kidnapped the Boy-Who-Lived."  
"We can't change the past," Hermione said, then she started giggling, "well, we sort of can." She looked nervously between Harry and Sirius and the joke got a laugh out of both of them.  
"Still, I can't go from the station to your island," Harry said, "I mean, I don't think I can. Can I?"  
"You're right, you can't," Sirius said, "Diagon Alley maybe, or with your friend Ron - where is he?"  
"He's still in the Hospital Wing," said Harry,  
"And you can't go with Ron anyway," Hermione said, "his parents would want to know where you were going or would notice that you'd disappeared."  
"You're right, and Mrs. Weasley would want to know who I was staying with and I don't exactly know many other wizarding adults," Harry said, dejected.  
"You could come back to Winchester with me, I mean as long as whatever it is won't seem like I did magic, my parents would understand I'm sure and we could just say it was your godfather and not say your name Sirius," Hermione said all of this rather quickly.

"That could work," said Sirius, nodding.  
"I can go and write to them now," she said.  
"That would be great," Harry said, "I can come with you."  
"No, you should get to talk to Sirius," she said, "I mean, without anybody else."  
The man in question was smothering a large yawn, "Actually I could really use some sleep, we can talk later."  
"OK," Harry said, "bye"  
"Bye"  
"Goodbye"  
Sirius' gaunt face disappeared and Harry and Hermione found themselves looking at their reflections.  
"I'm going to go and write to Mum and Dad," Hermione said, "can I borrow Hedwig?"

With the snowy owl winging her way to Winchester carrying a letter Harry and Hermione headed back outside, it was really too hot to be inside the castle for too long.  
"'ARRY," a friendly bellow startled the both of them but a beaming Hagrid waved them over and started speaking as soon as they were in hearing range "Beaky, he 'scaped. Las' night. An' Professor Lupin says he never ate anythin' las' night so Beaky's free."  
"Professor Lupin?" Harry said, attempting curiosity.  
"What do you mean 'ate anything last night'?" Hermione said at the same time.  
"Haven't yeh heard?" said Hagrid, pulling out a handkerchief roughly the size of a tablecloth to mop his face, "Snape tol' all the Slytherin's this mornin', figured everyone knew by now. Professor Lupin, well he's...erm...he's a werewolf an' he was runnin' around the grounds las' night."  
Both teenagers hoped their gasps of fake surprise sounded realistic but they seemed to satisfy Hagrid.  
"Is...is he leaving?" Hermione said.  
"Prob'ly. I 'eard he tried to resign this mornin' but Dumbledore weren't having it. Great man Dumbledore,"  
"I'm going to see him," Harry said immediately, turning back to the castle.

The door to Lupin's office was open and Harry looked around the partially packed room before he knocked.  
"I expected you," Lupin said, looking up from the very familiar battered piece of parchment  
"I just saw Hagrid," said Harry. "He said you'd tried to resign but Dumbledore didn't let you? Why are you packing?"  
"Dumbledore said it was silly for me to leave a week before the year end. My resignation has been accepted and I'll be leaving with the lot of you."  
"Why?" said Harry, "nobody thinks you helped Sirius do they,"  
Lupin got up to shut the office door, "no, Dumbledore convinced them that - officially at least - I was just an innocent bystander. But I'm a werewolf, so there'll be a lot of people who don't believe that."  
"You're the best defence teacher we've ever had," said Harry, "I'd be dead, and so would Sirius and Hermione, if it wasn't for you."  
"And how much you've learnt is the thing I'm the proudest of this year Harry," Lupin said, smiling, "but now that Severus...accidentally let slip I'm a werewolf, Dumbledore will be getting a fleet of howlers tomorrow morning. The only reason I'm not leaving tonight is that the end of term is a week away and there aren't any full moons between now and then." He smiled wryly at that, "will you tell me about your patronus?"  
"How do you..." Harry trailed off, "dementors, right."  
"Well done," Lupin said, "only a very powerful Patronus could have driven off that many dementors."  
"It looked like a stag," Harry said, "that was...was that what my dad turned into. I thought I saw him last night."  
"You're right," Lupin said, looking at him fondly, "your dad's animagus form was a stag, that's why we called him Prongs." Lupin turned away and opened a desk drawer and when he turned back there was a silvery cloak making parts of Lupin's arms disappear, "I brought this back from the Shack last night and..." he hesitated and then placed the battered parchment on top of it, "I'm still technically your teacher but I dont feel guilty about giving you this. I'm sure you, Ron and Hermione will find some use for it, probably a better one than we ever did."

Harry grinned as he took the map and the cloak, the only real things he had that belonged to his father, "you said Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs would have wanted to lure me out of the castle, you said they'd have thought it was funny.  
"And I meant it. If...if James and Lily had lived we'd have had weekly letters about what trouble you'd gotten into. James would have been disappointed if you hadn't found at least one secret passage out of the school. As it is I think he'd...I think both of your parents would be proud of you just as you are." Harry thought he might hurt himself if he smiled any more, it felt like he'd drunk a mug of warm butterbeer all in one go.

* * *

For the next week the three things which amused Harry, Ron and Hermione the most were the varied theories as to how Sirius Black and Buckbeak the hippogriff had managed to escape, Malfoy's furious expressions whenever someone mentioned Buckbeak's escape and the venomous glares directed at Professor Lupin by Snape - all of which were returned with placid smiles. Once again, Harry couldn't help by compare Snape to his cousin Dudley in terms of childishness.

As far as Harry was concerned this was the best year ever. The weather was beautiful, Snape and Malfoy were angry and couldn't do anything about it, Gryffindor had won the House and Quidditch Cups, Sirius was free but most importantly he wasn't going back to the Dursleys. Hermione's parents had written back to her saying that they were quite happy to have Harry to stay for a few days until he could travel out to see his godfather and he'd immediately written to the Dursleys saying that they didn't need to come and pick him up. He was going to spend the summer on a tropical island with his godfather rather than stuck in Number 4 Privet Drive.

The only things even slightly dampening his spirits were that Professor Lupin was leaving - something the rest of his Defence class shared - and wondering what had happened to Pettigrew, whether he'd joined up with Voldemort, whether sparing his life had been the right thing. But both of those things were unable to really bring him down. He was going to live with his parent's best friend, which was the next best thing to living with his parents.

Sirius hadn't written again but they'd spoken over the mirror a few times, to confirm that Harry would be at Hermione's house and that Sirius had reached the island safely after making sure he was spotted a few times.

The exam results came out on the last day of term, all three of them had managed to pass everything - although neither Harry nor Ron had done as well as Hermione. Harry was still amazed that he'd managed to pass Potions since Snape seemed to hate him even more now, and Harry hadn't even known that was possible, or at least the unpleasant facial tic which seemed to happen every time Snape looked at Harry hadn't happened before. He mentioned that to Sirius that night via the mirror, when he awkwardly told him his marks. How well or how badly he'd done had never mattered to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia but Dudley got fussed over no matter what he got. Sirius seemed happy and proud at the marks he'd got and nearly fell over laughing when Harry described how angry Snape seemed about the loss of his Order of Merlin.

Thanks mostly to the 230-20 win over Slytherin, Gryffindor had won both cups and so the entire hall was bedecked in red and gold and the noise from Gryffindor was truly ear-splitting. Harry nearly choked laughing when Ron nudged him and pointed at the head table. McGonagall, Hagrid and Lupin were all beaming and Snape appeared to be attempting not to explode from sheer loathing as he sat as far as possible away from the Head of Gryffindor. Lupin raised his glass in a toast when he caught Harry's eye and Harry raised his in return.

Harry himself was happy enough to be in the middle of the noise and chatter, eating and drinking as the twins made increasingly elaborate toasts to the Quidditch team. This was the best excuse he'd had to let how happy he was really show, winning the cups was great but it was nothing to not having to go back to the Dursleys tomorrow. Or ever again, he hoped.

Next morning was chaos, as all five members of Gryffindor's third year's boys dorm frantically finished packing in time for the trunks to go on the train and for them head down to the station. Dean was talking non-stop about the World Cup and so was Ron, although the world cups they spoke of were for different sports and mostly just confused Seamus, Harry and Neville.

It was only once they'd gotten on to the express and Harry and Ron had settled into a compartment with Hermione that she gave them both some news "I'm dropping Muggle Studies next year."  
"But you passed your exam with 300% or something," said Ron.  
"Only because my parents sent me some history books. The course is a hundred years or more out of date. Besides the Time Turner was driving me mad, I don't think I could survive another year like that so I gave it back. Without Muggle Studies or Divination I've got a normal schedule - and McGonagall said that you can apply to take the OWL independently so I could do that."  
"I can't believe you didn't tell us about that Time Turner," Ron said, grumpily, "right Harry?"  
"Hmm, what?" Harry said, he'd been staring out of the window and not really paying attention.  
"Harry," Ron said and Harry shook himself and looked back at his two best friends "what are you thinking about mate?"  
"Oh, just the holidays," Harry said, he'd explained that he was going to stay with Sirius to Ron - worried that he'd sound ungrateful or like a really bad friend but Ron had been happy about it, made a joke about not having to rescue him this summer.

"I wish you could come to the Quidditch World Cup with us mate, I'm sure Dad could get an extra ticket for you," Ron said, "I mean it's Ireland playing Bulgaria in England." Harry looked at his friend slightly confused, he loved playing Quidditch but he didn't really follow the teams, let alone the national ones.  
"I don't know if I can get back from the island for that or how I'd get to your house without your parents getting suspicious," Harry said.  
"You're right, but what do I tell Mum and Dad if they ask why you can't come?" said Ron.  
"I don't know...tell them the Dursleys went on holiday or something and I'm with them," said Harry vaguely, not mentioning that he doubted the Dursleys would ever have taken him on holiday with them even if he'd had a passport, "you can't mention Sirius to them though Ron." He remembered Mr. Weasley's warning to him at the beginning of the year, which had ultimately turned out to be pointless, but the Weasley parents would raise the alarm with the Ministry if they found out who he was really with.  
"Yeah, I know mate," Ron said.

"What's that outside the window," Hermione said suddenly. Both boys turned around to look at what seemed like an oversized grey fluffy snitch that was appearing and disappearing from site beyond the edge of the window. Harry opened the window and, judging the owl's next surge forward, grabbed it and the oversized letter it was carrying and pulled it inside.  
"It's a letter," Harry said, removing it from the tiny owl's legs and letting the bird go. It began flying around the compartment with almost cartoonish speed. Crookshanks adjusted himself into a crouch, eyeing the small flying thing, and Ron grabbed the bird out of the air.

"Dear Harry &amp; friends," Harry read aloud, "this should reach you before you get back to London. I'm enclosing this to make your next school year more enjoyable," Harry saw the second piece of paper which was a Hogsmeade form filled out in illegible handwriting with a surprisingly swirly signature that sort of read S. Black, "since we've sorted out the summer already. The owl is for your friend Ron as an apology for breaking his leg, and because I owe him a pet."  
"It's mine?" Ron said, eyes widening as he looked down at the little owl who was nibbling on a finger. He offered the owl to Crookshanks, "what do you reckon, owl or not?" Crookshanks purred, "that's good enough for me."  
"Anything else in the letter Harry?" said Hermione  
"No, just 'Padfoot'," Harry said, "if he really needed to talk to me we've got the mirror."

He couldn't help but keep an eye on it the rest of the journey back though, having put it in his robe pocket rather than his trunk, the gnawing fear in his stomach that something would happen, Sirius would call and say that he could no longer come to the island or something else which would mean the end of Harry's Dursley-free summer.

No such call came but he couldn't help the nerves. Even when they arrived at the platform and Mrs Weasley moved down the line of her children, giving each of them a hug in greeting and including him in that. When he and Hermione went through the barrier the Dursleys were nowhere to be seen and Hermione waved at a middle aged couple who came hurrying over to hug her.  
"Hi Mum, hi Dad," she said.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed it and I'll hopefully update next week with the next chapter. In the interim if anyone has an idea for a better title, I'd be happy to hear it.


	2. Chapter 2

This took a little longer than I anticipated to get published but hopefully not unpardonably long. I'd like to thank all the people from around the world (and wow, was I surprised to see people from so many different countries reading what I've written) who read, favourite and even reviewed.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognisable.

* * *

It occurred to Harry when he saw her parents that he'd known Hermione for three years and yet he barely knew anything about her family other than the fact that they were dentists. He'd never even met them before now other than seeing them from a distance in Diagon Alley the summer before second year. Even though they'd never met before Mrs. Granger gave him a hug as well, though it wasn't quite as tight as Mrs. Weasley's hugs were, and Mr. Granger offered him a hand to shake, which he took.

"Dark hair, glasses and horrible clothes - you're Harry," Mr. Granger said as their handshake finished. His wife nudged him in the side and Harry turned to Hermione and raised his eyebrows.  
"Well they are horrible," she said, blushing.  
Harry held his expression for a few seconds longer before grinning, "they're my cousin Dudley's castoffs, I know they're horrible."  
"Your Aunt and Uncle haven't bought you clothes," Mrs. Granger said, looking concerned.  
"Um, does my primary school uniform count?" Harry said, they were the only clothes that he could remember not coming from Dudley (though they'd still been second hand and far too big for him).  
"We should get a move on," Mr. Granger said, clearing his throat, "I hope we can fit two trunks in the car, not to mention Crookshanks and your owl."

Harry and Hermione both turned to wave to the Weasleys who were coming through the barrier in twos. Ron and Ginny stopped and waved back at them, nearly getting hit in the back by the twins who came barrelling through after them and - on spotting Harry - seemed to have some sort of seizure which involved excessive arm waving. That caused a seven Weasley pile up as Percy and then Mr. and Mrs Weasley came through the barrier and crashed straight into the backs of the twins who fell forward, their trolleys taking Ron and Ginny out at the knees.

Laughing helplessly Harry followed the Grangers out to where their car was parked.

As it turned out, they could just fit two trunks into the Grangers' car. One in the boot, the other jammed up on one end in the footwell behind the front passenger seat. Harry and Hermione were crammed into the remaining seat and a bit with Hedwig and Crookshanks carefully set behind the trunk.  
"So," Mrs. Granger enquired, "where are you going on holiday Harry?"  
"I don't know," Harry said, honestly, "somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle I think."  
"Harry's godfather owns an island there," Hermione added  
"I didn't think there were any real islands in there," Mr. Granger said.  
"Well it's probably hidden magically," said Hermione, "I know things can be, like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley are, but I'm just not sure how other than the Fidelius Charm - it might be that. I'd have to do more research."  
"I'll ask Si...him, when I get there," Harry said  
"How are you getting there?" Mrs. Granger asked, "I mean that's an awfully long way to travel, have you got a plane ticket? Do you need your passport?"  
"I don't know," Harry said, looking down and away. Sirius hadn't told him exactly how he was getting there, he didn't know much about magical transportation other than broomsticks or the Knight Bus and he assumed he wasn't going to fly his broom to the island.

The car was silent other than the radio for a few minutes until Mr. Granger started asking Hermione about the Muggle Studies class. She hadn't really talked about it a lot with either him or Ron while they were at Hogwarts but he couldn't help smiling along when she described just how out of date it was. No wonder Mr. Weasley had been asking about plugs and the postal service if that was what he'd been taught at Hogwarts.

The rest of the journey was filled with the same sort of chatter as they headed out of London and down towards Winchester. They stopped in Guildford for a very late lunch. Apart from the Leaky Cauldron it was the first resteraunt he'd ever been in, something he mentioned offhandedly when he asked Hermione what he should order - leaving out that the Dursleys had always left him at home in his cupboard whenever they went out to eat. He missed the look that Mr and Mrs Granger shared because Hermione was pointing out a few things she liked from the menu.

They couldn't stay very long at the resteraunt with Crookshanks and Hedwig still in the car - although all the windows were slightly cracked to give them some air and they'd parked in the shadiest spot they could find. As soon as they were finished and Mr. Granger had paid the bill they headed back to the car, laughing as Harry told them about Professor Trelawny's Divination classes.  
"Honestly Harry, I don't know why you're still taking that class," Hermione said as they buckled themselves back into the car and Mr. Granger started it up again.  
"Why do they offer it?" Mrs. Granger asked, "I mean, a teacher who predicts students deaths - that's a little dark."  
"I haven't mentioned Quirrel or Lockheart to them," Hermione hissed into Harry's ear.  
"She's not that bad after that though," Harry said, "not as bad as Snape anyway." And she hadn't tried to kill him, which put her in a better place than some of the teachers.  
"I wonder who we'll have for Defence Against the Dark Arts next year," Hermione said, "I mean, now Professor Lupin is gone."  
"You seem to go through teachers for that subject very quickly," Mr. Granger said, "Why did this one leave?"  
"He's a werewolf," Harry said bluntly. The car made an unhappy crunching noise and juddered a little as Mr. Granger fumbled a gear change.  
"A real werewolf?" said Mrs. Granger, turning almost completely around in her seat to look at them both, as if to try and judge whether they were having her on.  
"He's really nice," Harry said, defensively.  
At the same time Hermione started. "He's not dangerous other than on the night of the full moon and there's a potion, the Wolfsbane Potion, which lets him keep his mind and they took lots of safety precations, but the wizarding world are just terribly biased against werewolves even if he's the best Defence teacher we've had so far so he lost his job once people found out," she finished, all in one breath.  
"It's alright sweetheart," Mrs. Granger said, "I just didn't know werewolves were real."

That lead to a conversation about what magical creatures there were in the magical world - something Hermione hadn't been able to tell her parents much about last summer since they hadn't taken Care of Magical Creatures yet and the Monster Book of Monsters had proven impossible to read, even for her. Both Granger parents shuddered at Harry's description of Acromantulas, he skipped over the Basilisk entirely.

By the time they actually arrived in Winchester they'd gone over a somewhat sanitised version of their third year, not mentioning Time Turners or nearly being killed by Dementors or the entire incident at the Shrieking Shack. Harry had let Hermione direct which parts of the year they didn't mention, these were her parents after all, but he couldn't quite imagine not telling a parent who actually cared about some of the things which had happened.

As Harry was pondering this Mr. Granger pulled the car on to a paved driveway in front of a pretty red brick house. He handed Hermione Crookshanks' carrier and picked Hedwig's up himself as they got out of the car and headed up the steps to the front door. Hauling both trunks out of the car and up the steps into the house was quite hard.  
"What do you have in here, bricks?" Mr. Granger asked Hermione, panting as he pulled the trunk up the steps. Harry had the other end and was helpfully pushing it upwards.  
"No Dad," she said, laughing "but I did buy a few more books."  
"We should never have taught her to read," Mr. Granger said to his wife as he and the trunk reached the top of the stairs and hauled it into the hallway. Mrs. Granger and Hermione both laughed.  
"It was a joke," Mrs. Granger said, seeing Harry's slighly wary expression.

Fortunately Harry's trunk was lighter, having only his school books, clothes, broom and assorted miscellania.  
"We'd best leave your trunk here, since you're leaving tomorrow," Mrs. Granger said, "no point in putting it anywhere else." That had been a detail sorted out later, that whatever method of transportation Harry was taking to get to the island would be turning up tomorrow rather than today.  
"OK Mrs. Granger," Harry said, pushing it next to the recessed radiator right behind the door where it would be out of anybody's way. Hermione was pushing her trunk carefully down stairs.  
"Make sure to put anything you need washed in the washing basket," Mr. Granger called after his daughter, turning back to his wife and Harry he continued, "she'll probably be unpacking her books for a while. Let me show you the guest room." Harry picked up Hedwig's cage from the doorway to the living room where she'd been kept out of the way and headed towards the stairs.  
"I'll let Crookshanks out now," Mrs. Granger said, "he can't get under anyone's feet." Harry thought Crookshanks was probably too smart to get under the feet of people carrying trunks but that probably fell under the heading of things Hermione didn't want explained to her parents.

A flight of stairs later and Harry was being shown the guest room, it was very different from the Dursleys beige on white on cream guest room which he'd had to clean many times as a kid. What really drew him was the view of both the half-wild garden but also a big hill in the distance. Different entirely from the view of the Dursleys manicured front garden and the rest of Privet Drive. He set Hedwig's cage on the chest of drawers in the corner of the room and opened it and the window. Hedwig opened one yellow eye and gave a low bark of appreciation.  
"Dad," Hermione's exasperated voice came from the doorway, "I was going to show Harry around,"  
"Well you've still got the rest of the house to show him," said Mr. Granger, smiling at her, "the guest room really isn't that interesting."

* * *

He discovered that the Grangers had a library, he felt like he should have guessed that Hermione would have a room dedicated entirely to books. Her open trunk, mostly filled with books, was sitting next to a couple of shelves which had things like a few of the books from first year on them but were otherwise largely empty.  
"None of Lockheart's books?" he said, grinning.  
"I donated them to a second hand bookshop just off Diagon Alley as soon as I could," she said, "what did you do with yours?"  
"Left them at Hogwarts," Harry shrugged, "I don't know what happened to them. At least I didn't have to carry them to Diagon last summer though."  
"Have you got all three years worth of books in your trunk?" Hermione asked.  
"Yeah," said Harry, "I mean the Dursleys would probably burn them if I left them there and its not like I've got many clothes so they fit pretty well."  
"They really dislike magic that much?" Hermione said, looking deeply horrified at the idea of someone burning books.  
"Magic, me, anything not normal, they hate," said Harry, offhandedly, reading over some of the titles he could see in Hermione's trunk, then he thought of something and brightened "at least this summer I'll be able to do my homework during the daytime."  
"You know, that's the first time I've ever heard you sound even _slightly_ happy about doing your homework," said Hermione, "you'd get better marks if you were half as enthusiastic at school."  
"Yeah probably," Harry said, shifting uncomfortably. He certainly never tried as hard when he was actually at Hogwarts as he did during the summer but, thinking about it, he wasn't sure why. OK so there were more distractions at Hogwarts than there were at the Dursleys, like Quidditch and his friends and whatever strange thing was going on that year, but that wasn't all the time (no matter how much Wood would have liked it).  
"Anyway," said Hermione.

His tour of the Granger home was a little more whirlwind after that, the second guest bedroom, Hermione's room (girlier than he would have expected from her), the sitting and dining rooms. Harry took the opportunity to grab a second set of clothes to put in the guest bedroom for tomorrow since one of the Granger parents had already left towels in there so he could shower.

"Are you done with the tour?" Mrs. Granger asked as they came into the living room room for the second time.  
"Yes," said Hermione. She sat down on the sofa and Harry sat down next to her before she turned to her mother, "Mum, what are we doing for the holidays?"  
"I'm not sure. You remember Dr. Thwaite," Hermione nodded, "he got married over Christmas so we've got more holiday than we expected since he took time then for his honeymoon and he'll work most of the summer with Dr. Coombs. We wanted to wait and talk to you about where to go though."  
"I don't know, did you and Dad have any ideas?" Hermione said.  
"Your Dad thought of maybe going to Spain, but we'll have to stay in a hotel or rent a house - Dr. Coombs doesn't have a house out there we can stay in," said Mrs. Granger. Noticing Harry's bemused expression she explained, "Dr. Coombs set up the practice we work at. She's semi-retired now and we stayed in her house out in France last summer. She works at the practice here in the summer and spends the winter in France." The look of understanding on Harry's face told her that she'd interpreted his confusion accurately.  
"Discussing our holiday plans?" Mr. Granger said as he joined them, his folded paper tucked under his arm.  
"We hadn't got much further than not knowing where we're going," said Mrs Granger.

The Grangers talking about the relative merits of Spain over going to France again or staying in England turned into Hermione telling Harry more about her trip to France last summer. Her letters hadn't been particularly detailed, although now he could see why since he doubted any post owl would have been willing to carry the essay length letter she obviously thought necessary. That wasn't to say that some of it wasn't interesting - he had no idea that the original mirrors in the palace of Versailles had been magical and that had led to a the French Ministry having to replace them after signing the Statute of Secrecy because they were considered in breach of it. Harry had mentioned the Weasley's enchanted mirror which had frequently commented on his hair and that made Hermione laugh. There was a photo album in a cupboard which she fetched and when Harry saw the size of the mirrors in the hall he laughed as well at the idea of a mirror that size bellowing at somebody to fix their hair or tuck their shirt in. With the photo album already out she showed him more of the photos she'd taken of both magical and muggle France.

Their conversation was only disturbed when Mrs. Granger announced it was time for dinner. Since they'd had lunch late it was fairly light and eaten in front of the television with the news on. Harry was relieved to see that the muggle news, at least, had stopped mentioning 'escaped prisoner' Sirius Black - he didn't want to think badly of Hermione's parents and he wasn't sure what sort of comments they might make about his godfather. In fact they were more interested in a shooting which had happened in Ireland that day. He could remember Uncle Vernon ranting about how everyone responsible ought to be shot whenever something came up relating to the troubles in Ireland, Harry had no idea what the problem was or why things were getting blown up.  
"At least no more bombs have gone off so far this year," said Mrs. Granger, "last year was horrible." Harry had only been in the muggle world for the news report on one of them, but he vaguely remembered the news saying something about previous bombings. It wasn't like his Aunt and Uncle had been eager to let him watch the news at any point, ever. In fact, Harry being stationary within watching distance of the television might as well have been a capital crime in the Dursley household ever since Harry had been old enough to know what a television was.

With the mood dampened rather badly the channel was turned over to the start of a movie Harry vaguely recognised - only because it had been Dudley's favourite film the summer before he'd gone to Hogwarts and he'd whinged until Uncle Vernon had taken him to see it several times.  
"Robin Hood?" Hermione asked.  
"Well your mother does like Kevin Costner," Mr. Granger smiled and Mrs. Granger laughed.

About half way through the movie it hit Harry that this was the first film he'd ever watched. He'd been excluded from the end of term videos which had been shown occasionally by his primary school teachers and the Dursleys had certainly never let him near the television let alone for long enough to watch a film in its entirity.  
"Does the Sheriff remind you a little bit of Professor Snape?" suggested Harry, grinning  
"I can see the resemblence," Hermione giggled.  
"He'd probably quite like to cut my heart out with a spoon," said Harry, "or cancel Christmas," which set the both of them laughing until he noticed that her parents were giving them strange looks.

It was only when they'd finished watching Robin marry Lady Marian that the two teenagers were ushered off to their respective beds for the night. Lying in the Grangers comfortable guest bed he thought back on the earlier conversation about their holiday plans. Without really thinking, he rolled out of the bed and grabbed the mirror from the pocket of his jeans - where it had been transferred after he changed into normal clothes on the Express.  
"Sirius," he said into it  
His godfather's face appeared in it, "Everything alright Harry?" he asked  
"Actually, I was wondering something..."

* * *

Harry woke the next morning to the sun streaming through curtains he hadn't closed last night, the window was open as well letting balmy summer morning air in - both the curtains and the window had been left open so Hedwig could go out and hunt. He blinked at the fuzzy surroundings and threw an arm over his eyes to block out the blinding light, rolling away from it. When the sun didn't go away as he'd like it too, he groaned and groped around to find the glasses he'd set on the nightstand before he went to sleep, though he found it was on the other side of the bed than he was used to. With the world now in focus he sat up, stretched and looked around. Hedwig was back in her cage and he presumed she'd been out hunting since she hadn't been when he'd come up to bed last night. The clock said it was just after half past seven so he headed down to the kitchen and found all three Grangers sitting around the little table in the corner.  
"Morning Harry," said Hermione  
"Good morning," Mrs. Granger said. Mr. Granger lowered his paper to give Harry a nod of acknowledgment and then went back to his paper and coffee, "my husband isn't a morning person," she explained.  
"It's alright," Harry shrugged.  
"Help yourself to cereal," said Mrs. Granger, "or I can make you some toast."  
"Cereal is fine," Harry said, shaking some into a bowl and adding milk before sitting down at the vacant seat of the little table.

When breakfast was over Harry tried to broach something he'd talked over with Sirius last night,  
"Um I was thinking," Harry started, "I mean, if you wanted to, you could come on holiday to my godfather's island."  
"Have you asked him about this?" said Mrs. Granger, looking skeptically at him.  
"Yes," Harry said, "I talked to him about it last night, he's fine with it and the house there has enough bedrooms."  
"Where is it again," said Mr. Granger  
"Si...my godfather said the island is about 200 miles into the Bermuda Triangle from Nassau in the Bahamas but that with magical transportation you can island hop fairly easily and go to the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica or America," Harry didn't have much of an idea where most of those were but Sirius had said they were near the Caribbean and he remembered Aunt Petunia being envious of a neighbour who'd gone there so it must be fairly good.  
"That's amazing," Mrs. Granger said, "I'm sold. Hermione?"  
Before Hermione could say anything Harry remembered one other thing Sirius had said last night, "the underage magic detection doesn't work there."  
"When can we go?" Hermione said excitedly.  
"We've got a fortnight or so more until Dr. Coombs gets back and our holiday starts," Mrs. Granger said, "besides, we probably need to talk more about this whole idea."  
"Here," Harry said, offering Hermione the mirror, "you can use it to contact me and we can talk about it."  
"It was your dads, Harry," said Hermione, taking the mirror tentatively and putting it carefully in the pocket of her dressing gown, "are you sure?"  
"Yes," Harry said, "besides, it's only for two weeks."  
He wasn't expecting the hug she gave him and had to take a step back to keep his balance before hugging her back.

As they parted from the hug Mr. and Mrs. Granger excused themselves to go and get ready for work, Hermione disappeared upstairs to get ready and Harry headed upstairs to grab the clothes from yesterday and put them in his trunk, shutting a sleeping Hedwig in her cage while he was in the room. With the bathroom free he showered and changed into fresh (although still much too large for him) clothes.

He'd just finished pulling his shirt on when there was a knock on his door and it opened almost immediately. It was Hermione carrying a fairly large rucksack.  
"Hermione?" he said, looking at the rucksack confused.  
"I was just thinking, I don't know how you're getting to the island but having your trunk will just be more difficult, especially since you'll have Hedwig and I thought this would be easier. It was meant for camping so it should hold your things easily," she said.  
"Thanks," said Harry, taking the rucksack and shoving yesterday's clothes and his pyjamas into the bag. They headed downstairs together and Harry couldn't help asking "Why do you have a camping rucksack?"  
"I was briefly a Guide," said Hermione softly, looking away from him and shrinking in on herself "my parents wanted me to socialise more so I was enrolled. We had one overnight away and they bought me that for it. I...didn't really like it that much and I left after that."  
"Sorry," Harry said helplessly, not knowing what else to say.  
"It's OK," Hermione said, and then changed the subject "do you think you'll need to pack your quills and ink? They're a little fragile."  
"I wasn't going to pack them, I can always buy some more if Sirius doesn't have any," he said, glad to be able to actually say his godfather's name, the Doctors Granger having left while he was in the shower, "I'm more worried about my Firebolt to be honest."

Half an hour, some string and a lot of disapproving looks later Harry's belongings had mostly been transferred to the, now overstuffed, rucksack. Crookshanks had shown up as soon as they'd finished tying Harry's Firebolt securely to the outside and had spirited the unguarded ball of string off to underneath the sofa. The disapproving noises had mostly been directed towards Harry's wardrobe (or his lack of one). At Hogwarts it was totally normal, and often much warmer, to just wear robes year round so Harry's Dursley cast-offs hadn't really made much of an appearance other than the journeys on the Express or underneath his robes on very cold days.  
"You really need to buy some proper clothes," she said when they'd zipped up the rucksack and Harry set it aside to wait for whatever was going to turn up and transport him to Sirius to appear.  
"I will," Harry said, raising his hands in surrender. Besides, it would probably be nice to have things which weren't worn thin, torn, or just too large for him. If he could do one of the island hops that Sirius had been talking about then maybe he could buy himself some things.

It was just before nine when a loud crack from the hallway startled both Harry and Hermione and made Crookshanks - now curled up on the windowsill basking in sunlight - fluff up and hiss. Harry recognised the creature which came into the living room as a House Elf but Hermione looked very confused.  
"Kreacher is coming to fetch Harry Potter," the elf said, obviously unhappy about it, "he is to take Harry Potter to...to," Kreacher looked like he'd tasted something foul as he spat out the last two word, "Master Sirius."  
"Harry is that..." Hermione started, he'd told her and Ron a fair amount about Dobby but he realised she'd never seen a House Elf before.  
"Yeah that's a House Elf," he said, "nice to meet you Kreacher."  
"Harry Potter says it's nice to meet Kreacher. Kreacher's mistress would curse Kreacher for being in filthy muggle home with filthy mudblood, Kreacher ought to leave boy who defeated the Dark Lord in the sea but Kreacher can't" he muttered, just loud enough to be heard,  
"Harry are you sure you should go with him," Hermione said nervously. She brought the mirror out from her pocket, "do you want to check with Sirius?"  
"Maybe that's a good idea," said Harry, taking the mirror, "Sirius."

A grinning Sirius appeared in the mirror, "Harry, are you about to leave?"  
"Actually that's what I was wondering about," Harry said, awkwardly, "you sent a House Elf,"  
"Yes I did, they're a sort of magical servant," Sirius explained  
"I've met one before, I know what they are," Harry interrupted when Sirius paused, "Kreacher seems a little...odd." Compared to Dobby who hadn't been able to say anything bad about the Malfoys, even when they'd been ordering him to punish himself.  
Sirius' face grew slightly more serious, "yeah, Kreacher's old, more than a bit nuts and hates me a lot but he has to be loyal and he knows he's not allowed to hurt you or leave you anywhere."  
"OK," Harry said, somewhat relieved, "but if I can get a friend of mine, Dobby, to come with me would that be OK."  
"Yeah, sure," Sirius said.  
"Thank you for the invitation to your island," Hermione said from over Harry's shoulder, "I think we'll be coming in about a fortnight."  
"I'm going to leave the mirror with Hermione so we can talk," Harry added.  
"Good idea," Sirius said, "and it's the least I could do after you broke the law for me."

Harry handed the mirror to Hermione and pulled his wand out from his pocket, that had worked for the Knight Bus after all, and firmly said "Dobby."  
There was another crack and a familiar House Elf appeared and, on seeing Harry, gave a happy squeak and hugged him, "Harry Potter calls for Dobby, Dobby is honoured," was said into Harry's navel  
"Dobby, I'd like you to meet Hermione, Sirius and Kreacher," Harry said when the elf let him go. Hermione had turned the mirror around so Sirius could see what was going on.  
"Dobby is glad to meet Harry Potter's friends," he said, nearly bouncing with excitement, "what does Harry Potter need."  
"Kreacher is going to take me to Sirius' island," said Harry, "and I figured two House Elves would make it easier."  
"Nasty boy who stopped the Dark Lord lies," Kreacher crowed victoriously, "Son of filthy blood traitor is scared"  
"Kreacher will not insult Harry Potter in front of Dobby!" Dobby said emphatically, giving the other elf a threatening look, "Dobby will go with Harry Potter and keep him safe."  
"Good," said Sirius from the mirror.  
"I guess I'll see you soon then Sirius," Harry said, grinning. The feeling of internal warmth came back full force.

Harry shrugged on the rucksack, made sure that the Firebolt was securely attached one final time, gave Hermione a hug and picked up Hedwig's cage. Kreacher carefully touched one bar of Hedwig's cage, having a brief staring contest with the disgruntled owl, while Dobby took a firm hold of Harry's free hand and glared at Kreacher.  
"Bye Hermione," Harry said as the strange quartet of two House Elves, an owl and a wizard with a broom tied to a rucksack disappeared.

* * *

Oh god did this early parts of this chapter fight me to get it up to the wordcount I wanted it to be at. It also included a frantic last minute re-write when I realised I'd misplaced Hedwig and Crookshanks.

Again, hopefully an update in week to a fortnight. Also, does anybody like the cover?


End file.
